Bahrain Online Community Network
December 25th 07, 08:10 PM
drinking,
working, putting on one?s clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in
vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost
entirely of words that we already possess words like hit, run, dog,
tree, sugar, house, field -- but in comparison with the present-day
English vocabulary their number was extremely small, while their
meanings were far more rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of
meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a
Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one
clearly understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use
the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical
discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts,
usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of
these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts
of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to
very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb,
noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when
they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of
itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word
thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by
think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle
was followed here: in some cases it was the original noun that was
chosen for retention, in other cases the verb
working, putting on one?s clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in
vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost
entirely of words that we already possess words like hit, run, dog,
tree, sugar, house, field -- but in comparison with the present-day
English vocabulary their number was extremely small, while their
meanings were far more rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of
meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a
Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one
clearly understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use
the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical
discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts,
usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.
The grammar of Newspeak had two outstanding peculiarities. The first of
these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts
of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to
very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb,
noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and the noun form, when
they were of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of
itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word
thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by
think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle
was followed here: in some cases it was the original noun that was
chosen for retention, in other cases the verb